A Charedi friend of mine told me the following story. His son who learns in Yeshivas Brisk in Israel had come home from Israel for a family Simcha. Before returning, he had told his father that he believes he found the right Derech… the correct way to live one’s life, and he saw it in the young Bnei Torah who are Avreichim in places like Brisk. They learn all day long and materially, they are Sameach B’Chelko, living a modest lifestyle, far happier than the average man. Geshmak is the way he put it. Geshmak is a Yiddish word that has no real translation in English. The closest thing, I suppose, would be “very spiritually and emotionally satisfying”. My friend, who is in Chinuch is a very savvy individual. He realized that his son was not witnessing reality at all. What he saw is just a very small segment of the much larger Charedi world for whom things are not always so Geshmak.
As an antidote to his son’s unrealistic picture, my friend put together a folder of mailings he had received from Israel from various rabbis and organizations asking for Tzedaka for the many poor Avreichim in Israel who are in dire poverty and not able make ends meet. Many are so behind in paying even simple grocery bills that collections are being made on their behalf. When his son came home for the Simcha my friend showed him the folder he prepared and asked him, “How Geshmak does this look to you?” He also asked him how many 45 year old Avreichim with children to marry off had he met?
Yes friends, this is the Israel of the Charedi world. And though the situation is much better here, I fear that the poverty class of Charedim is rising here too. How many times have I heard from a young Yeshiva Bachur, with no education beyond high school say that he plans to learn in Lakewood (or some similar Yeshiva) as long as he can. And at that point he will look for a job. Not properly trained, with a knife at his throat, and unprepared for the rigors of the workplace.
I know of one Frum businessman who tries very hard to give jobs to Avreichim who are ready to leave full time learning. He has a hard time explaining the requirements of the workplace. Avreichim applying for jobs have unrealistic expectations. He will typically get “conditions” of employment from them. For example, an Avreich may ask to work only until noon on a Friday so that he can go home early and help prepare for Shabbos! His understanding of the demands workplace is infantile. Here is a Bal HaBos offering them decent paying jobs and they give him conditions.
And that’s in the US. In Israel there is an even greater disconnect between Bnei Torah and the workplace. Army service is one obstacle and that helps facilitate the attitude that one should continue learning full time for as long as one can. That and the fact is there is a lack of any training what-so-ever results in an almost aversion to the workplace. There are other factors but these alone are enough to perpetuate this untenable situation. The typical Avreich is so far removed from the work force that it is completely alien to him. Jobs are scarce enough for those with training. Those without any training? Good luck.
True, the typically impoverished Avreich may have amassed a tremendous amount of Torah knowledge but that will not buy him a single loaf of bread or gallon of milk. And it certainly won’t pay for a Dira (apartment) for his children when they get married.
And that brings me to the following article from yesterday’s JTA news service. The article describes the way in which some Charedi women are crawling out of poverty. And more power to them. They have found a way to earn more money than they otherwise might. Charedi woman now have the ability to train for jobs and work as para-legals or computer programmers in a place that employs almost exclusively Charedi women.
One nice thing that this has resulted in is that “the government has provided an added incentive in the form of a subsidy of up to $240 a month per worker, which can account for as much as one-quarter of a full salary.”
There are several businesses like this opening up but the this was the first one. It was founded by Joe Rosenbaum, an American Charedi businessman, from Lakewood. Now there are “six other companies employing haredi women” that have since followed his example in its current location.
I’m not a big fan of government subsidies to businesses. I never-the-less credit the Israeli government for having the good sense to invest in Charedi businesses. Of course this doesn’t really solve any big financial problems of the future. The salaries earned here are not going to buy Diros for their children getting married. The real solution as I have said many times is a change in the entire system, both here and more importantly in Israel.
But even with the advent of this wonderful opportunity for Charedi women, most do not have this option as of yet. The opportunity is limited.
“Due to their lifestyle, the haredim account for much of the poverty in Israel. About 20 percent of those living in poverty in Israel are haredim, even though they comprise only about 8 percent of the population. Between 40 to 50 percent of haredim live below the poverty line, compared to 17 percent of Jewish families living in Israel as a whole.”
The description of the poverty these Charedi working women are escaping from is truly telling of their impoverished circumstances. Some of the women working there were interviewed:
“It is a scary feeling that you don’t have with what to buy in the store,” said N., 29 describing what it used to be like for her. “You need to shop for food and clothes, and you don’t have the money.”
“When I started working, I asked myself how I was living until now,” said T., 32, who has six children, a husband who studies full-time at a kollel and sizable debts to pay off.”
Yet another woman tells us that “Two years ago her family moved from their tiny two-bedroom apartment, where five of her six children had shared one room.
“For about 80 percent of these women, mostly mothers in their 20s and 30s with large families, it is the first time they have held jobs following years of raising families while living in deep poverty.”
I cannot understand how the rabbinic leadership in Israel can allow these kinds of conditions to exist in such large numbers. To keep extolling the virtues of learning full time, and thereby to prevent young men from educating themselves for the workforce so they can accommodate the very Hashkafos the rabbinic leadership promotes… and most recently, to forbid women from getting better educations so they can at least pull themselves out of their dire straits… is discouraging to say the least. How much longer will they allow this intolerable situation to go on?
But I am gratified to see that according to sociologist to Menachem Friedman there has been a bit of a revolt in the Charedi world “against a life of self-imposed poverty", gradual though it may be: “It is beginning to happen, but it’s not an overnight process, especially because overall, Israel as a welfare state for the ultra-Orthodox still works,” he said, referring to haredi political clout in the Knesset that translates into government allowances for married men engaged in full-time Torah study. “But you see in the margins there are people who seek to live differently.”
Things are slowly beginning to change even if it is happening at snail’s pace. Let’s hope it continues and that the pace picks up.
